Heiser Facade

1. Auflage 2012
ISBN: 978-1-57799-577-7
Verlag: Lexham Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 336 Seiten

Reihe: The Facade Saga

Sci-fi meets historical fact in this thrilling novel by ancient-language scholar Michael S. Heiser. Haunted by his parents' death and his career failures, Dr. Brian Scott has begun to settle for the life he's been given. Until he's kidnapped by military insiders known as The Group. Disappearances. Visitations. Murder. Brian and a team of world-class scholars are given a confidential mission: To prepare humanity for a new reality. They are here. But as the government's involvement with extraterrestrials is revealed, strange things begin to happen. Something isn't right. Unpeeling layer after layer of deception and counter-deception, Brian moves toward a shocking revelation that will forever alter how humanity sees itself. Every document cited in The Façade actually exists. Every ancient text discussed in The Façade is authentic. Every historical figure referred to or quoted in The Façade is real.

Michael S. Heiser is a senior writer for Bible Study Magazine and a scholar-in-residence at Faithlife Corporation. He has also served as academic editor for the Faithlife Study Bible and is author of The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible and the fiction series The Facade Saga.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Heiser, Michael S.

Leseproben

5

I will prepare, and some day, my chance will come.

—Abraham Lincoln

Brian sat up groggily and waited for his eyes to adjust. For a moment he was startled by his unfamiliar surroundings, but then the memory of his abduction came rushing back. So where am I?

There was a nightstand next to the bed, on which lay his glasses, an alarm clock flashing “12:00,” and a small lamp, the room’s only illumination at the moment. Putting his glasses on, he cautiously left the bedroom, emerging into a fairly spacious, three-room, fully-furnished efficiency apartment, its walls lined with empty bookshelves. There was no telephone.

He looked at his watch in disbelief. Seven o’clock p.m. He’d lost nearly a day—but to what? The main living area was choked with a few dozen boxes, each bearing his initials, which had been hurriedly scrawled with a black magic-marker. His filing cabinets had been brought as well. Other than the furnishings and shelves, the only item in the room that wasn’t his own was a computer system already set up on a desk. There were doors at either end of the room, each with handles instead of knobs.

Brian noticed immediately that the door closest to the sofa had some type of electronic locking mechanism that resembled a calculator, along with a small red light that flashed at a regular interval. He tried the handle on the door, but it was locked securely. “Not that I have anywhere to go,” he muttered to himself. He didn’t dare touch the buttons on the keypad.

Staggering slightly, he headed for the second door at the far end of the room and tried the handle. The door opened to a full bathroom. Thinking a shower would help clear his head, Brian relieved himself and, after a few minutes of searching through the boxes, found his toiletry items and undressed.

As the spray hit his face, his thoughts drifted to the recent past. He had to admit that his life was in total disarray. The upheaval that had begun two years ago when he’d lost his parents now seemed to have climaxed. He kept telling himself that God was good, and that he should be thankful for what he had, but the mantra was losing its efficacy. His heart was slipping into the quagmire of doubt.

Other than the senseless violence, what was especially cruel about his parents’ deaths was that their lives had been taken on the day he had walked the line for his PhD. The day was supposed to be one of celebration, the triumphant climax to years of study and determination. It had promised to be a day of reconciliation as well.

His parents had never understood his desire for an academic career, much less his field of choice. In fact, they’d never understood him. Someone interested in books in a proud blue-collar family just didn’t fit in. Working in the family’s landscaping business during his high school summers hadn’t helped, either. He eventually came to understand that this arrangement had been part of a plan to groom him for the family business; he was the anointed successor. This all made sense to his parents, since Brian was the only child. He just had no desire to spend his life manicuring shrubs and sod.

Brian recalled wistfully the day he had told his parents he planned to attend college to study ancient history. Explanations of his aspirations to become a college professor and to travel through the Mediterranean fell on deaf ears. He was soft and lazy, his father had retorted angrily, and he was abandoning the family. His mother openly lamented that throwing away the opportunity to walk into a profitable business was proof that her son hadn’t an ounce of common sense.

Of course, by the time of that conversation, he’d become accustomed to being misunderstood, and even ignored. He’d lacked the good looks and the drive to inebriate himself on a weekly basis, the two prerequisites for acceptance in the right cliques in high school, and he managed to graduate without having gone on a single date. Even the kids who liked him thought he was odd. They were going to be doctors and lawyers; he was bent on wasting his education on something that wouldn’t earn him an income worth bragging about. None of this had mattered to him, save for the confrontation with his parents. Deep down, they were the only people whose opinion ever really mattered.

His performance in high school and the obligatory entrance exams earned him acceptance to his first choice among colleges, Johns Hopkins University. Predictably, the accomplishment elicited no excitement from his parents. In fact, the only thing that generated any response at all during his undergraduate years was the news that he’d decided to stop going to mass and had begun attending a Presbyterian church. His parents were staunch Catholics, and they interpreted his decision as more evidence that he wanted no part of the family heritage. The punishment meted out was apathy toward him.

He drowned his loneliness in study. Were it not for the spiritual and intellectual camaraderie of a professor at the university, his college career would have unfolded in near total emotional isolation. It was the same during his graduate program at the University of Chicago. But after nine years of academic toil, he’d accomplished his goal. A month before he would receive his degree, his parents had surprised him with a phone call to tell him they would be there to see him graduate. He never spoke to them again.

What followed in the subsequent year was nearly as unimaginable. Shortly after burying his parents, he’d been offered an appointment teaching Old Testament and biblical languages at a small denominational college. The money wasn’t good, but he hadn’t cared. Teaching was all he’d ever wanted to do. Everything was fine until a parent of one of his students—one of the college’s trustees—objected to a few comments he’d made in an article. After only a few months of living his dream, he found himself fighting unsuccessfully for his job.

Brian turned off the water and leaned with both hands against the wall of the shower. Watching the steamy mist dissipate and the water drip from his nose, he could still hear the “we have to cut untenured staff” excuse from the dean, calculated to insulate the school from a lawsuit. Liar. He still couldn’t believe the whole ruckus had happened. He’d assumed that people of faith would want to think about their worldview, that they would enjoy engaging questions that mattered, rather than feel threatened. His miscalculation had cost him his job, and academic jobs in his field were about as common as a selfless politician. Talk about naïve.

Lacking any other direction, he’d moved back home to Pennsylvania to enter seminary. It was a far cry from where he’d been. The job at the bookstore was barely sufficient for his needs, but at least it was stimulating. And now here he was, apparently in the middle of nowhere, for no telling how long. The job was history now.

He finished dressing and leaned on the desk in his new living quarters, his eyes filling with tears. “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small.” The proverb echoed inside his head. There had to be some purpose for all of this.

Suddenly he heard a distinct click behind him. What he had presumed was the front door opened, the red light now extinguished. Brian stood up. A lone figure attired in a gray business suit, nearly as tall as Brian, stood in the doorway, briefcase in hand.

“Good evening, Brian,” the man said with a sincere smile.

“Neil!” he exclaimed and strode toward his visitor. The two exchanged a brief but strong embrace. “You’re the last person I expected to see in this place—wherever it is we are.”

“I have no trouble believing that. How was your, uh, trip?”

“I’m in one piece, but since you asked,” he responded, irritation surfacing in his voice, “I don’t like being drugged. I must have missed that part of the Patriot Act.”

“I know it’s disorienting, but I’m afraid it was necessary,” Neil said, his expression turning more serious.

“Necessary? What’s going on?”

“That’s why I’m here.” Neil seated himself on the small couch and opened his briefcase. Brian sat on the floor, his back to the wall, listening as he put on a pair of socks. “I can’t tell you everything that I’m sure you’ll want to know,” he continued, “mostly because it’s classified. Believe me, I know that’ll be frustrating for you, but you’ll have to trust me.”

“Where are we, the Pentagon?”

“No—their rooms have bars on them,” Neil answered with a chuckle.

“Then, where?”

“That’s one of the things I can’t tell you—at least at this point. Everyone who’s been brought here in the last few days as part of this project was brought under the same circumstances as you to maintain the secrecy of this location. You may be allowed to know eventually.”

Brian looked at him uneasily.

“Brian,” he said with a pause, “you’re here at my specific request. I almost want to apologize to you for it, but I need you to be part of this assignment. This will introduce you to some of the details—although painfully few right now.”

Neil handed Brian a small folder. Brian took it and looked at the cover. Aside from his embossed name, there were only the words: “Above Top Secret.”

“Wow, this is cool.”

“I doubt if you’ll think so in a few days. In fact, you’ll probably ask me again what you’re doing here, but for different reasons.”

“You know that if you need me, I’m here for as long as it’s...